"The New Museum is accepting requests from the public for digital preservation of artist–produced moving image and born–digital content. Appointments for transfer and recovery are available from July 17 through September 8, 2013, transfers occur as part of the exhibition/lab 'XFR STN' ...

All moving image materials that are digitized as part of the exhibition will be made publicly available by the New Museum on the Internet Archive, a nonprofit institution whose mission includes offering 'free and open access to all the world's knowledge' and to provide permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to cultural heritage collections. All artists submitting moving image materials will be able to download preservation–grade digital versions of their materials from the Internet Archive. Born–digital materials that are digitized as part of the exhibition can be made available by the New Museum on the Internet Archive at the artist's discretion. As part of 'XFR STN,' selections from the digitized content posted on the Internet Archive will be informally screened in the exhibition galleries."

Fig.1 Matthew Geller answering phones during the live call–in segment of Cara Perlman's End of the World show, produced for Potato Wolf, a project of Colab TV, ca. 1978

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"Sony Music has unveiled a graphic installation documenting the company's 125 year musical history. Designed by Alex Fowkes, winner of Creative Review's 'One to Watch' in 2011, the Sony Music Timeline runs throughout the central atrium of Sony's open plan Derry Street offices.

The Installation features nearly 1000 names of artists signed to Sony Music and its affiliated labels from the foundation of Columbia Records in 1887 to the present day, including musical icons Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin, The Clash, Micheal Jackson and many many more.

Interspersed among the artist names are certain key developments in technology, musical formats and corporate history – from the invention of early recording cylinders to vinyl, cassette, CD, radio, MTV, the Sony Walkman, the iPod and the introduction of digital streaming services.

The work is organised by decade into 54 columns measuring over 2 meters tall and covering almost 150 square meters of wall space. It uses CNC cut vinyl as the sole medium for the whole installation.

Emma Pike, VP Industry Relations, who commissioned the piece said, 'The brief was to bring the inspiration of our music into the heart of our building and make our office space live and breathe our incredible musical legacy. Alex's beautiful graphics and illustrations do exactly that.'

Sony's partnership with Fowkes is set to continue as the Sony Music Timeline will grow each year with the addition of new artist names signed by the major.'"

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"As early as 1900 the Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen (1869–1942) was demonstrating his Telegraphone at the Paris Universal Exhibition. This machine magnetically recorded telegraphy transmissions on a steel wire. In 1924 Dr. Kurt Stille (1873–1957), a German engineer, developed a practical office dictating machine which was produced by the Vox Gramophone Company. This, too, recorded onto steel wire but the quality fell far short of broadcast standards. The BBC became aware of this machine and closely followed developments in magnetic recording. Its interest increased with the coming of the Empire Service, where the same programme would be repeated several times for different time zones.

Film producer and showman Louis Blattner (1881–1935), a German who lived in England, formed a company to develop and market Stille's inventions. Among the projects that he set his engineers was to produce a machine which he hoped could be used as a source of sound synchronised to film.

In September 1930 a machine was installed for trials at Avenue House, then the home of the BBC's Research Department and the results were deemed good enough for speech, but not for music."
(Roger Beckwith)

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"Although Scott claims he had the idea for the phonautograph in 1853 or 1854, he first went on record in January 1857 by depositing this document in a sealed packet with the French Academy of Sciences. In it, he spells out his plan to record sound waves on lampblacked glass plates using a mechanism based on the human ear: a funnel, two membranes separated by an airtight space, and a stylus attached to the second membrane. At the end of the document Scott has attached two plates of phonautograms "dating back three years," supposedly his very first experiments."